Black holes, the Doomsday Clock, and other weighty matters (PART TWO)

Professor Daniel Holz ‘92 returns to provide an update to his February 2023 talk on black hole astrophysics. Professor Holz will provide a follow-up on how we use gravitational waves to listen to colliding black holes at the edge of the universe. We use these observations to learn about the age and composition of the universe, the earliest generations of stars, and where all the gold and platinum comes from. Daniel will also discuss the new UChicago Existential Risk Laboratory, how we set the time on the Doomsday Clock, and his role in that process.

Attendance at Professor Holz’s previous talk will not be assumed…all are welcome to learn, network, and enjoy this exciting Princeton Club event!

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2024
6:30 PM

CLICK HERE TO RSVP BY 10/13 @ 11:59 pm!

Daniel Holz '92

Daniel Holz '92 is a professor at the University of Chicago in the Departments of Physics, Astronomy & Astrophysics, the Enrico Fermi Institute, and the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics. He works on black holes and gravitational waves. He is a member of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) collaboration, and was part of the team that announced the first detection of gravitational waves in early 2016 and the first multi-messenger detection of a binary neutron star in 2017. He received a 2012 National Science Foundation CAREER Award, the 2015 Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, and the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics in 2016, and was elected Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2017. Daniel is co-Chair of the Science and Security Board of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and in this role helps set the Doomsday Clock.